“Yes, all is right,” said the Frenchman. “It is madame. She is in her trance. Now, gentlemen, if you will wait quiet you will see something, I think, which will interest you much.” Still the ticking in the hall. Still the breathing, deeper and fuller now, from the medium. Still the occasional flash, more welcome than ever, of the passing lights of the hansoms. What a gap we were bridging, the half-raised veil of the eternal on the one side and the cabs of London on the other. The table was throbbing with a mighty pulse. It swayed steadily, rhythmically, with an easy swooping, scooping motion under our fingers. Sharp little raps and cracks came from its substance, file-firing, volley-firing, the sounds of a fagot burning briskly on a frosty night. “There is much power,” said the Frenchman. “See it on the table!” I had thought it was some delusion of my own, but all could see it now. There was a greenish-yellow phosphorescent light--or I should say a luminous vapour rather than a light--which lay over the surface of the table. It rolled and wreathed and undulated in dim glimmering folds, turning and swirling like clouds of smoke. I could see the white, square-ended hands of the French medium in this baleful light. “What a fun!” he cried. “It is splendid!” “Shall we call the alphabet?” asked Moir. “But no--for we can do much better,” said our visitor. “It is but a clumsy thing to tilt the table for every letter of the alphabet, and with such a medium as madame we should do better than that.” “Yes, you will do better,” said a voice. “Who was that? Who spoke? Was that you, Markham?” “No, I did not speak.” “It was madame who spoke.” “But it was not her voice.” “Is that you, Mrs. Delamere?” “It is not the medium, but it is the power which uses the organs of the medium,” said the strange, deep voice. “Where is Mrs. Delamere? It will not hurt her, I trust.” “The medium is happy in another plane of existence. She has taken my place, as I have taken hers.” “Who are you?” “It cannot matter to you who I am. I am one who has lived as you are living, and who has died as you will die.” We heard the creak and grate of a cab pulling up next door. There was an argument about the fare, and the cabman grumbled hoarsely down the street. The green-yellow cloud still swirled faintly over the table, dull elsewhere, but glowing into a dim luminosity in the direction of the medium. It seemed to be piling itself up in front of her. A sense of fear and cold struck into my heart. It seemed to me that lightly and flippantly we had approached the most real and august of sacraments, that communion with the dead of which the fathers of the Church had spoken. “Don’t you think we are going too far? Should we not break up this séance?” I cried. But the others were all earnest to see the end of it. They laughed at my scruples.